Flag football: Fremd’s late stand denies Carmel, earns Vikings spot in first IHSA state tournament
Defense wins.
Fremd’s flag football team, which is in its inaugural season, showed that it learned that lesson well.
The Vikings came up with a huge stop in the final minute of the game to preserve a 24-20 victory over Carmel in the sectional finals of the first IHSA state playoffs Wednesday at Stevenson in Lincolnshire.
Fremd (11-4) advances to Friday’s state quarterfinals at Willowbrook. The Vikings will meet Evanston, which beat Taft 14-12, at 4:30 p.m.
Fremd coach Rebecca O’Dette, who had 90 girls tryout for the team in late August, said her team has come so far in a short period of time.
“It is amazing,” O’Dette said. “I am so proud of these girls. They worked so hard all season. Almost every girl on this field, this is the first time they played football. To go from never playing football to winning a sectional championship they deserve all the accolades.”
It took a swarming defense by Fremd to enable the Vikings to move on.
Carmel (9-3), which was seeded 10th drove, down the field to the Fremd 11-yard line in just over two minutes. The Corsairs used the running of quarterback Josie Hartman and a huge catch and nifty run by Maia Cordova to get the ball within striking distance.
But the Corsairs failed to score on three consecutive pass attempts, leaving them a bit short.
“We gave ourselves a chance to win and they just made more plays than we did,” said Carmel coach Ben Berg, whose team is also in its first year as a program. “It was a great high school flag football game. I am so proud of our girls.”
Carmel had tremendous success on its first two possessions as the Corsairs jumped out to a 14-0 lead.
Hartman connected in the corner of the end zone with Cordova on a four-yard touchdown pass on Carmel’s first possession. But the Corsairs misfired on the two-point conversion and led 6-0.
After a defensive stop by the Corsairs, Hartman returned a punt 30 yards to the Fremd 32. Three plays later, Hartman hit Cordova again, this time from 18 yards out, and the duo then connected on the two-point conversion pass to make it 14-0 with 8:27 left in the first half.
Despite being down two touchdowns, Vikings receiver Gwen Zimmerman said her team was ready to get back in the game.
“Yesterday (Tuesday) we gave up a touchdown on the first play,” said Zimmerman, whose team rallied to beat Hersey in the sectional semifinal, 28-22.
“So we knew we were in worse, maybe not worse, but similar situations and we knew how to regroup and reset. And we did we what we needed to do.”
Fremd did successfully regroup.
The Vikings came back and scored on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Lily Mayer to Asya Poyraz in the back of the end zone on fourth down. Mayer then hit Ella Todd for the two-point conversion to cut the lead to 14-8.
Fremd took the lead on the first possession of the second half. Mayer scrambled and scored on a 15-yard run. She then ran from 8 yards out on the two-point conversion for a 16-14 advantage.
Carmel came right back and tallied on Hartman’s 6-yard run. But the two-point conversion pass failed and Carmel led 20-16 with 8:56 to play.
Undaunted, Fremd rallied again.
The Vikings got the ball down to the Carmel one on a 17-yard pass from Mayer to Ava Anzalone. Mayer then had a short one-yard pass off a jet sweep to Zimmerman for the touchdown. Mayer tossed two-pointer Todd to make it 24-20 with 3:10 to play.
“We just got consistent on offense,” Mayer said. “We thought that would be enough. Then they really made it a close game over there. But our defense held up out there and it was really good.”